f r a y
by hashtagartistlife
Summary: Maybe fate was called fate because some things weren't choices; some things were simply written into his DNA, woven into the very fabric of the universe. World orders. The sky is blue. The sun is hot. He is in love with Kuchiki Rukia. Kuchiki Rukia is dying. /Ten years after the defeat of Yhwach, it's time Ichigo and Rukia started facing some truths.
1. Chapter 1

**so, i haven't written anything decent in over a year, but i AM sitting on literal tens of thousands of words of unfinished fic, and i figure, what the hell, there's some good writing in here that deserves to see the light of day. so in that vein, here's a couple chapters of my absolute favourite unfinished fic, the one i'm almost too scared to work on because i just want it to be ****_that_****good. god give me the perseverance and skill to finish this one day because if i leave any legacy behind in the bleach fandom i want it to be this fic. **

It's rotating

Rotating

Every time the sun and the moon touch each other

Constantly changing its appearance to something new

If there's something that doesn't change

It is my impotence

It's rotating

If destiny is made of gears

And we are the sand in between that is torn apart

There's nothing left to do but be powerless

If I cannot protect by just extending my hand

I want a blade so I can reach in front of her

The power to crush destiny

—looks like a blade that has been swung down

One

.

.

.

_12 years ago_

_Karakura Town_

Rukia sleeps like the dead. The irony of this isn't lost on Ichigo, as he glances out the corner of his eyes to see her out like a light against his covers, her homework splayed everywhere like she isn't just going to make him do it for her at the last minute again. Her eyes are closed and she looks peaceful, even as her arms are twisted under her at an awkward angle. She was going to get cramps if she kept sleeping like that. He calls her name, softly and then a little louder, but she doesn't budge an inch.

He sighs and gathers her up in his arms; she stirs a little, murmuring a sleepy protest that he ignores. He settles her in the closet and arranges the blankets, taking a moment to study the lines of her face.

"Idiot," he mutters, "stop falling asleep on my bed. I'll just push you onto the floor next time."

It's a lie. Rukia's only reaction to this is to shift a little in her sleep, to curve her body in his direction like a plant tending towards the sun. He smiles a little at that, despite himself, and fights an inane urge to sweep her hair off her forehead and place a kiss there.

"Sleep well, Rukia," he whispers instead, and slides the closet door shut.

She does.

.

.

.

_Present Day_

_Soul Society_

Rukia never sleeps.

She wanders through the halls of Kuchiki Manor like a ghost, weaving in and out of lucidity; she's never slept particularly well, even as a Rukon street rat, but this… this _sleepwalking_ is new. Renji himself tended to be a light sleeper, a product of their shared childhood when uninterrupted sleep had been a luxury they couldn't afford, but not to _this_ extent. He silently watches the dark circles under her eyes grow bigger and deeper with every passing day, and worries.

In the beginning, the smallest things had woken her up. She often stirred beside him, restless and alert, till well into the small hours of the morning. When he'd brought it up, she'd brushed it off; she's always had trouble sleeping, she said. He should know this by now, and it isn't anything to worry about—she can take care of herself, Renji, didn't he trust her? It had sounded an awful lot like a dismissal, a warning to drop it, so he had.

But then she'd had Ichika, and things changed.

The first time he catches her slipping out of bed, he assumes that she is going for a walk in the garden. It was a habit she was slipping into more nights than most, and he doesn't think twice. But when he wakes up again in the pre-dawn, and discovers the futon beside him still empty, he panics. He finds her at the gate, a cold hand on the latch, as if to walk out; god knows how long she's been there for. When he touches her on the shoulder, turns her around, she blinks like she's surfacing from a trance. Her eyes haze, then refocus.

"Renji…?" she asks, in a voice so thready it's barely audible, "What are you doing here?"

He swallows the same question rising in his throat and mutters something hasty about how she's been too tired lately; she should take the day off. She looks surprised at that, and quietly follows him back to the manor. She does as he advises and stays home that day.

It doesn't help. The very next night Renji catches her slipping out of bed again. He grabs her by a wrist, but then she turns to him and whispers, eyes lucid and clear—

"_Ichigo?"_

He freezes, and when she pulls her arm from his grip, he lets her slip through his fingers once more.

_Ichigo?_

His hands fist in the sheets of their shared bed; he hasn't seen an expression like that on her in over a decade. Hopeful, young, _happy—_

_A boy with bright orange hair, and a sword as long as his height._

Renji finds, once again, that he is at a loss for what to do next.

He thinks that maybe he didn't have a clue from the start.

.

.

.

_Present day_

_10:05 am_

_Karakura Town_

A beat of silence, then—

"Yo."

"Hey!"

His face is familiar, but the carefully mild expression on it is not. Rukia finds that she dislikes it, but it isn't her place to say anymore. She shoulders her way into the clinic, and ignores the way the heat of his body still _radiates_ like it did ten years ago. She scoffs a little, wracks her mind for an appropriate jab that might recapture their easy banter from once upon a time; but what leaves her lips makes little sense, considering the fact that this is her first time seeing him in ten years (let alone setting foot in the clinic). Thankfully, he rises to the bait.

"I see this little place is as empty as ever. And is that—yup, I think I even hear some crickets!"

"Shut up. This is an emergency clinic, so it's a good thing it's empty, isn't it?"

He hasn't lost his habit of grumbling under his breath about her insults. Rukia allows a small smile to touch her lips as she makes her way to the living room, confident with the layout of the place; she doubts renovation is a thought that crosses his mind with any frequency. She encounters the old Karakura gang, and the twins; they'd all grown so much. The twins, especially; she would have gathered them both into hugs and pat them on their heads, had they not both been grown women and far taller than her now. Orihime comes down to greet her, beaming, in an apron—there's an edge of surrealism to all of this, almost. She looks well, and for that, Rukia is glad. Everyone looks well. Peacetime suits them.

There's a small kerfuffle as Ichigo rejoins them, and he points out that her daughter is missing. Rukia starts, and finds it to be true. She and Renji split up to find her; Ichigo accompanies her, nagging all the while.

"—nbelievable, how do you lose your _own daughter_—"

"Hey, I don't see _your_ child hanging around the premises! Don't you have a son, too?"

"Kazui's—Kazui's _fine,_ Orihime's keeping a watch on him—"

"Yeah, well, I'm telling you Ichika's fine too, there's nothing in the human world that could possibly hurt her—"

She stumbles; a wave of vertigo hits her and she loses her balance, careening towards the asphalt in front of his house. He's there in an instant, arms strong around her waist; he pulls her back upright and doesn't let her go. "Easy—"

She pulls away, only to sway again and grip onto his arm for support. _Shit_, not this today. She thought it had been getting better lately—Ichigo didn't need to deal with _this._

His brow furrows, and he almost looks fifteen again. "Hey, Rukia, are you—"

"—I'm fine," she cuts him off, struggling to sound nonchalant, but the hand fisted in his shirt is trembling. She'll let go soon, when the world around her stops spinning. "I'm just a little tired—"

"Rukia," he says quietly, and she ignores him, focusing on channelling strength back into her legs. For the love of everything holy, why couldn't she stop _shaking_—

"Rukia," he repeats, louder, and grips her shoulders. "Rukia, stop—"

"Stop what?" she asks weakly, then: "Oh."

His hair and clothes are dusted white with snow; the tips of his fingers, where he's touching her, are frosted over blue. Ice creeps over the street and telephone poles in tendrils. Rukia heaves an unsteady breath and closes her eyes, pulling the fraying edges of her reiatsu back within herself.

When she opens them again, he's inches from her face.

"_Kami—"_ she jerks back, snatching her arm from his grasp. "Have you ever heard of _personal space,_ Ichigo—"

"Like you ever respected _mine?"_ he retorts, but straightens up; his hands rub the nape of his neck. "What was _that_, Rukia?"

"_Nothing,"_ she snaps. She draws her arms around herself to still the trembling. "Like I said, I'm tired—"

"To this extent? How hard are they working you over at the Seireitei—"

"I can take care of myself!" the words come out too loud, echoing in the empty street. "Need I remind you, I'm _centuries_ older than you are—"

"Well maybe if you weren't such a midget I'd remember that once in a while—"

"Hey, Ichigo, Rukia! We found her!" Renji's call interrupts their bickering, and they draw away from each other hastily; they'd been leaning in towards each other again. Rukia deliberately turns away from Ichigo.

"You found her? Where was she?"

"In Ichigo's room. Well, Yuzu's room, now, I suppose. She was with Kazui. I think we were worried for nothing, Rukia, they get along like a house on fire."

"Oh—good. Good." She's still a little disoriented, so Renji's words are taking some time to sink in; he eyes her face, paler than usual, and steps up to put an arm around her. Ordinarily, she would have been annoyed at him for that, but today she appreciates the support. She tries not to visibly sag as she leans against him.

Ichigo's eyes burn holes into her all the way back to the clinic.

.

.

.

_9:46 pm_

The rest of the day passes uneventfully. Rukia disguises the fatigue that has settled over her like a shroud by staying close to Renji and surreptitiously leaning against him whenever things get too hard. She puts on a bright façade for everyone else; she thinks she does a convincing job, too, but Ichigo's eyes linger on her all the same. Orihime prattles on about how they hadn't seen each other in ages and she's so happy for the two of them and isn't Ichika just a _darling?_ They must be so proud—

She nods weakly, glad that Orihime is the kind of person who can hold up entire conversations on her own. She has missed them too, she _has_, how could she _not_—but the circumstances of their reunion are less than ideal, and she knows that she won't be able to see them again for a long time after this. Even after ten years of stability, opening a doorway into the gensei is precarious business; missions in the world of the living are now all long-term, to minimise the number of passages being opened. Their own trip had been a very, _very_ special extenuation, granted only because the reason the universe still stood as it did today was _Ichigo._

A week was all they'd been given. After that, who knew when they could return? So, she is trying, she is _trying_—but her body is so, so heavy, and the pressure of keeping her wildly fluctuating reiatsu under wraps is taking its toll. She participates less and less in the conversation, hoping people won't take notice.

Ichigo puts his foot down when she nods off for the fifth time in as many minutes; he cuts the party short and ushers everyone out, with the promise that they could all return tomorrow. She tries to protest when he directs them to the guest bedroom – '_Urahara has a place for us, we shouldn't intrude'_—but it's Orihime who tells them don't be silly, Kazui and Ichika are such fast friends, it'd be a shame to split them up already. The children are excitedly building a pillow fort under the dining room table, and, too tired to argue, Rukia acquiesces.

As soon as Renji hits the bed, he falls straight asleep. He's had a rough few nights, what with her tossing and turning keeping him awake, too, and Rukia feels a wave of guilt wash over her. She hopes tonight will be a little more restful for him. She stretches out gingerly on the double bed next to him, tucking the covers around her and closing her eyes.

The last thing she is conscious of before the suffocating embrace of sleep is the deep low hum of Ichigo's reiatsu through the house.

.

.

.

_2:57 am_

Ichigo wakes to the sound of the clinic door opening.

Beside him, Orihime is still sound asleep; his wife had always been a deep sleeper, capable of ignoring storms, earthquakes, and anything else the Karakura night cared to throw at them. Ichigo, on the other hand, woke often; a holdover from nights spent hunting hollows, from sleep frequently interrupted by a hiss in his ear and a small hand slamming into his forehead. He sits up and shakes the last vestiges of his dreams –curiously unsettled tonight—from his mind, and shuffles outside to investigate.

It's not the kids. They're both fast asleep, holed up in their pillow fort; he tiptoes past them, careful not to wake either. He steps out onto the street, and his breath catches in his throat.

Rukia's there. She's ethereal in the moonlight, white skin almost glowing, that true-black hair swaying behind her with the wind. She's looking up, up, _up_, to something he can't see, and the curve of her neck and the delicate line of her wrists and ankles captivate him. Had she always been this fragile-looking?

"Rukia," he rasps, voice still scratchy with sleep, "what are you doing?"

She turns her head to face him; her eyes are huge and dark like bruises in the pale moon of her face. Something about her gaze is both clear and dreamy; Ichigo has the feeling that she's seeing right through him to something _beyond_, but also focusing on him with the kind of relentless intensity he only half-remembers from dreams of the past. She takes a tentative step in his direction.

"Ichigo?" she asks, in a voice as intransient as smoke, and he does not back away.

"Yeah," he whispers, "yeah, it's me. I'm here."

She reaches for him and, instinctively, automatically, he mirrors her; he is expecting her to need support, to meet his hands with hers, but instead she goes straight past his open arms to place her hands on either side of his face.

Before he has time to react, she leans up and kisses him.

Everything in him short-circuits; the world slows and all he is aware of is the softness of her lips on his. They part slightly, and the breathy sigh she lets out electrifies all of his senses. Faster than his thoughts can catch up, his hands are gripping her shoulders and he thinks that maybe he meant to push her away, but finds he's only clutching her closer, _closer_. His eyelids fall shut with a groan as her mouth opens under his — and then the kiss _changes_, dangerous and hot and _wanting. _

He presses his face blindly into hers, and walks her backwards into the stone wall that surrounds his house. She lets out a tiny gasp as her back hits the rough surface, and he uses the distraction to sweep his tongue across hers. Her fingers curl viciously into his neck and he revels in the sensation; there's nothing but her her _her_ in this world, her taste in his mouth and her scent in his nose and the feel of her skin, fever-hot, against his own. His fingers move to tangle in her hair and she makes a noise at the back of her throat that _destroys_ what little rationality he has left; he hitches her up against the wall and _kisses_ her as though she's about to dissolve into thin air.

They both draw back for air at the same time; their eyes meet across the infinitesimal space and then Rukia blinks, once, twice, before Ichigo sees something click back into those bruised-violet depths.

"Ichigo…?"

A realisation of his own slams into place; his eyes widen and he disentangles himself from her, stepping back frantically as though that will erase what has just transpired between them. He only barely resists the childish urge to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. Rukia slides down the wall without his weight holding her up; the dreamy glaze is gone completely from her eyes, and it's replaced instead with a bone-deep weariness that sets Ichigo's instincts on edge. Half of him wants to run far, far away from her, the other half wants to gather her into his arms and—

"Ichigo, what are you _doing_ here?"

The tone of her voice, slightly irritated, so ridiculously _normal_, brings him back down to earth. He casts about in his jumbled mind for a suitable response and flings the first one he finds at her.

"Y—I could ask you the same thing—"

She seems to notice her surroundings then, looking side to side at the deserted street. An expression somewhere between horror and resignation crosses her face. "I—was I _sleepwalking_—?"

"Was that what it was?" he retorts, the memory of the kiss burning in his mind. His face feels uncomfortably hot. "Rukia, what's going _on_ with you—"

"Nothing!" she snaps, but then she sways on the spot; in a flare of panic, Ichigo _shunpoes_ beside her, and she falls into his chest. The spike of reiatsu through his body after not having called upon it for years makes his head spin, but he braces them both against a telephone pole and they manage to stay upright. Her jasmine-scented hair tickles his nose.

"Rukia—" his voice is thick, choked, but she pushes him aside; impatient, indignant.

"I'm _fine_, Ichigo, you don't have to treat me like a child—sleepwalking is hardly a medical emergency."

She takes a deep breath, before standing on her own; her knees are a little wobbly, but she turns her back on him once more, just as she did that morning. "I'm going back to bed. You should, too."

A pause. Then, softer; "Goodnight, Ichigo."

The door to his clinic swings shut after her, and Ichigo slides down the telephone pole slowly.

His heartbeat thunders in his ears in a way that it hasn't in ten years.


	2. Chapter 2

**yeah this is all i got for this fic for now (this and a tiny little bit of chapter 3), it'll be updated when i wrack up the nerve to keep writing again which im hoping might be sometime this decade :'/**

Two

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_9:12 am _

_Kurosaki Clinic_

When Renji wakes up the next morning to find Rukia safely asleep beside him, he feels the tension across his shoulders ease somewhat. They'd both been a little worried about how her sleepwalking habit might fit into this visit (even though neither of them had voiced their concerns out loud), he more so than she for reasons he had yet to disclose to her. Her breathy sigh of '_Ichigo?_' rings in his ears. He hadn't seen a point in telling Rukia about that, not when she was still refusing to admit she had a problem in the first place. She'd just feel needlessly guilty and isolate herself even more. Renji knows how Rukia works. What he doesn't know is how to break through that shell she builds around herself, how to draw her out of it and get her to face her problems head-on.

No, he admits (and he'd be lying if he said there wasn't a trace of bitterness in the way he thought it), that's always been _Ichigo's_ specialty. He looks across the rowdy breakfast table to his friend, who is sitting uncharacteristically silent with a mug of something dark and unappetising in his hands. His eyes are shadowed, tired, and when he meets Renji's gaze he starts almost _guiltily_ before curving his lips into an uneasy smile.

_The hell's all that about?_ Renji thinks, but then Ichika slams into his knee, shoving a glass of orange juice into his face, and he puts the moment out of his mind. The rest of the morning is filled with trying out some godawful beverage called 'coffee' at Orihime's behest, wrangling Ichika into human world clothes, and sending the children off, along with their mothers, to go meet Sado. He and Ichigo stay back, Ichigo to tend to his clinic and he to go see Urahara. Since gensei visits were so few and far between, even on what was ostensibly a holiday they had been saddled with checking in on the shopkeeper to exchange news and technology. Renji figures he might as well get that out of the way first, and catch up with Sado later.

At least, he figures that until Ichigo corners him just before he walks out the door, a dark expression on his face. He looks uncomfortable, standing in the doorway of his own house, a hand on the back of his neck, and Renji notes with a kind of detached surprise that if Ichigo hadn't been slumping, they'd be more or less at a height now. He raises an eyebrow at him in a silent question.

"A— about Rukia—" Ichigo stumbles over the syllables in her name, and stops, wetting his lips, looking nervous. A sense of foreboding settles into Renji's gut; Ichigo hasn't looked this worried in— well, a decade. He stays quiet, letting Ichigo finish his question. "Has she ever— has she ever sleepwalked before?"

He freezes in his tracks; frantically, Renji rewinds last night in his mind. It's no use; he'd been out for the count for a solid eight hours. If he hadn't been so tired lately, he'd have thought someone had spiked his drink. Try as he might, he can't remember Rukia slipping out of bed at all. But she'd been back in bed by the morning, so someone must have intercepted her—

_Ichigo_. Rukia's voice, ghostly in his mind, calling his name. _Ichigo. Ichigo. Ichigo—_

His breath leaves him in a long, long sigh, and Renji closes his eyes before gesturing for Ichigo to sit.

.

.

.

_6:53 am_

Ichigo doesn't go back to his bed after the kiss. Instead he sits outside the clinic, on the cold hard asphalt, for one eternity— two— til the sun starts lightening the end of the street and the moon grows paler in the sky. He can still feel _Rukia_ on his skin, in his veins, lingering like a drug that refuses to clear. He doesn't know if he'll ever be empty of her touch now that he's known it.

When the moon finally disappears and the sun well and truly risen, he picks himself up from the ground and stumbles back into the house, feeling like _he_ was the sleepwalker now. The sight of their children sprawled out together in their blanket fort brings the reality of what he's done rushing back to him. He can't help the reflex that brings his fingers up to ghost over his lips, like a lovesick teenager. The breath leaves his lungs like he's been punched, and he turns away from the kids, sleeping angelically side-by-side. He can't bear the thought of facing either of them, of facing _anyone_ in this household any more.

What does he do now? Does he go back to bed, pretend nothing ever happened— slip into his place beside Orihime and forget the fact that his heart is beating again for the first time in ten years? Does he come clean to her and beg forgiveness, tell her he loves her and it won't ever happen again, or does he lock this away in a dark recess of his mind, just like he's done with his shinigami powers and everything related to _her_ for the last decade? His mind casts around frantically for excuses — he was tired. It was the middle of the night. Hell, he doesn't even know if it really happened anymore — was everything a fever dream, triggered by the immense relief of seeing Rukia again? But his blood is thrumming in his veins, and the power he'd spent his entire adult life crushing down is once again swirling and eddying just under his skin, exactly like it had when he was seventeen. His hands are shaking, and his skin feels hot. He can't lie to himself. Rukia was here. Rukia'd kissed him. He'd kissed her back.

He drags his trembling hands over his eyes, down his face; slumps into a chair in the kitchen and attempts to evade the question that becomes more pressing with every second. _What now?_ It was clear that Rukia had no idea what had happened. The weight of this transgression was his alone to carry. Even if she _had_ remembered, the fault lay with him— she'd been asleep, but he'd been wide awake and had _pulled her towards him_.

A part of him— the good part, the noble part, the part that had once forced its way through layers of hollow to tell his zanpakutou to fuck off out of his fight with Byakuya— is yelling at him to confess, to lay himself at Orihime's mercy and take whatever comes from it. But a larger, more insistent part of him is asking, _for what?_ What does telling Orihime accomplish, but the breaking of four hearts? He has never deserved Orihime, with her soft smiles and kind words to his rough edges; the fact that he is, once again, an awful person to her— _for her_— is not news. What is the point of ruining her spun-sugar smile with something that will never happen again—

_liar_

—especially when it doesn't just involve him? If he confesses, it's not just his head on the line; it's Rukia's, too, no matter the fact that she was asleep at the time. And he might be willing to risk everything he ever is or was for far less than this, but there is no way in hell he will do that to _Rukia_. Not for some one-off sleepwalking incident that she had no control over, and if it happens again he'll just push her away—

_**liar**_

— and oh, god, was this a thing that happened _often?_ Rukia'd always been a deep sleeper; she was, despite everything she insisted to the contrary, very clearly _not okay_ if she was sleepwalking like this.

As his thoughts spiral back to the cause of his turmoil, Ichigo becomes acutely aware of her reiatsu upstairs, thrumming rapidly like a hummingbird's wings. It seems lighter and more unsettled than he remembers it being, and the tinge of instability to it as it flares and retreats irregularly unnerves him. Rukia's reiatsu control has always been top-class, so this distinct _lack_ of it triggers alarm bells in his mind. He swallows, and attempts to smooth down the ragged edges of her power with his; but wherever his reiatsu brushes against hers, it just flares brighter and more powerful and he has to give up, lest it disturb Renji or the kids.

It's been a while since he's felt someone else's reiatsu like this, but he knows this isn't normal; concern eats at him even as it wars with an urge to ignore it and bury everything about this incident as deep as possible. Rukia isn't an idiot, she would have gotten help if it was something serious—but would she, really? He knows better than anyone how stubborn she can be when she thinks she's being a burden. She'd die before she let someone else take the fall for her.

He closes his eyes.

He scowls; ten years it's been, and she's still so— so— so _her._ Longer hair, a husband and child, a Captain's haori, and nothing matters; she's still stubborn, still a bitch who lives to help everyone else but won't let anyone help _her._ It's evident in the way she refuses to say she's tired, the way that Renji's eyes follow her around everywhere, worried. She's still the self-sacrificing idiot she'd been from day one, and he—

He is still the coward he'd been twelve years ago, when he'd watched her bleed out on the concrete before him and only then been spurred into action.

This isn't about him. If Rukia is ill, then he has to let someone know— someone who can actually do something about it. His feelings — whatever they are— does not factor into the equation. This is about _Rukia—_

— so, he needs to talk to Renji.

.

.

.

_10:18 am_

"Has Rukia ever sleepwalked before?"

A moment of tension across Renji's features, and then a long, long sigh; he gestures for Ichigo to sit, and the two of them shuffle over to the recently vacated kitchen table. Renji rubs his face tiredly, and Ichigo's sense of foreboding grows.

"... Last night, huh?" Renji says, and Ichigo almost jumps out of his skin; did he know? Could he see— was the mark of Rukia's lips on his visible, indelible, the way it felt like to him? Could everyone read it on his face, that he and Rukia—

Renji's voice is weary as he continues. "Yeah. Yeah, she's sleepwalked before. The past few years, actually. What did she do last night? How did you find her?"

— _kissed—_ "She— she walked out of the clinic and I heard the door open. Renji, is she— is she _okay—"_

Renji leans his elbows on the table and buries his face in his hands. "I don't _know," _he breathes, frustration dripping from every syllable. "I don't _know, _she won't _tell_ me, you know how she is—"

Did he ever. Ichigo remembers with vivid clarity the time she'd sustained a stomach wound, back in the days before Soul Society; she hadn't told him for three days, and had only agreed to go see Urahara when she'd finally collapsed in his arms.

" — don't think I've _tried—?_ God, doctors, healers, we've tried everything, Kuchiki-Taichou's worried out of his mind. But she won't have any of it, says she won't let us waste time fussing over her when there are better things to worry about—"

"That fucking idiot," Ichigo mutters, and Renji barks out what is almost a laugh.

"Right? Drives me up the fucking wall. Wouldn't be Rukia if she didn't."

"Guess not."

Renji cracks a strained smile before it fades away into seriousness again. "It wasn't this bad before," he says, and Ichigo sits up straight.

"Recent thing, then?"

"Depends what you'd classify as recent. I mean, she's never been a heavy sleeper—"

At this, Ichigo interrupts. "Wait, really? She's always slept like the dead—"

Renji gives him a look, and Ichigo remembers who it is that is sharing her bed now. He shuts up.

" — as I said, she's never slept too well, even during our Rukon days, and it got pretty bad after the war, but it wasn't— wasn't to this extent, you know? At least, not till she had Ichika. And then— it was like a switch flipped. She couldn't get to sleep at night, and she could barely keep her eyes open during the day. It started interfering with her work, and you know how that would have killed her; we started to go see a bunch of people for it but nothing seemed to help. And then she started _sleepwalking—_"

Something cold crawls up Ichigo's spine.

"She— at first, we didn't know where it was that she was going in her sleep. she wandered the Kuchiki Manor gardens a lot, sometimes she just paced around inside the house. Sometimes she got out of the Kuchiki property and was well into the streets before we found her and brought her back. I didn't know where she was trying to go—"

Renji breaks off, and looks Ichigo dead in the eye.

"— till one morning I woke up, and found her at Sokyouku Hill."

Ichigo's blood turns to ice.

"It was bloody Sokyoku Hill, Ichigo. Every single time— inside the Manor, in the gardens, on the streets. She was always trying to get to Sokyouku Hill. North-north west from the Kuchiki Manor. I—"

Renji's expression turns supplicating, as if asking him for an answer, but Ichigo has none to give; he's rooted to the spot by the sheer _horror _he's feeling, Rukia strung up against the Sokyouku like a sacrifice vivid in his mind. That collar around her neck, a red slash splitting her throat open; her eyes, glazed over with tears. Her skin dyed orange and yellow from the heat of it all.

"I don't know what's wrong with her, Ichigo, for fuck's sake I can't even get her to _admit_ that there's something wrong. I just—"

Renji drops his head into his hands. Very softly — so soft that Ichigo is sure he isn't meant to hear these next words— he says to himself:

"Ten years. Ten years, and I'm still not enough."

_Ten years._ Enough to fell mountains; enough to dry rivers and move oceans.

Not enough to change a heart.

When Renji looks up at Ichigo again, his gaze is edged with steel.

"She says your name."

"I— what?"

"She says your name, when she walks out to Sokyouku Hill. She says your name."

A memory, in his mind: Rukia, ethereal in the moonlight. _Ichigo? _

_Yeah. Yeah, it's me. I'm here. _

Ichigo doesn't know what to say.

Eventually, Renji breaks their impasse; he sighs and raps the table before getting up. "I'm not such a small man as to beat you to a pulp over that, Ichigo, stop looking like you think I'm going to bite your head off."

"I'm not—" he protests automatically, but Renji shushes him with a wave of his hand.

"You are, but that's not the point." He ambles over to the door and looks over his shoulder at him, one hand poised on the handle. "If— if there's anything you might be able to do for her—"

"Renji—"

"Please," Renji says, and even though this time, he isn't on his knees half-dead before him, Ichigo knows what it's costing him to make this request. "Please… help her."

_Of course,_ Ichigo wants to reply, _She'll be fine, I'll save her. Rukia'll be safe—_

But he isn't fifteen anymore.

"I'll— try," he says, lamely, and that is the best they can do. Renji nods.

"Gonna go see Urahara. He might have some tricks up his sleeve," he says, but he doesn't look like he believes what he's saying. Ichigo waves him off, and Renji slips away.

The sound of the clinic door swinging shut echoes in his wake.

.

.

.

_3:02 pm_

_Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr._

_Click._

"...Hello?"

"Kurosaki-san?"

"... Urahara-san?"

"Ah, Kurosaki-san, thank goodness you picked up. If you aren't busy, I'd appreciate your presence at the Shoten as soon as possible."

"What? Me? Why?"

A pause; Ichigo finds, for no good reason whatsoever, that he is holding his breath.

"Ah, well. You see, that is—"

Between one accelerating heartbeat and the next—

"Kuchiki-san has collapsed."


End file.
